New data release: ECB wage tracker indicates decline in negotiated wage growth over course of year

11 June 2025

• ECB wage tracker updated with wage agreements signed up to mid-May 2025
• Forward-looking information confirms negotiated wage growth set to ease over course of year, consistent with data published following April 2025 Governing Council meeting

The European Central Bank (ECB) wage tracker, which only covers active collective bargaining agreements, indicates negotiated wage growth with smoothed one-off payments of 4.7% in 2024 (based on an average coverage of 48.8% of employees in participating countries), and 3.1% in 2025 (based on an average coverage of 47.4%). The ECB wage tracker with unsmoothed one-off payments indicates an average negotiated wage growth level of 4.9% in 2024 and 2.9% in 2025. The downward trend of the forward-looking wage tracker for the remainder of 2025 partly reflects the mechanical impact of large one-off payments (that were paid in 2024 but drop out in 2025) and the front-loaded nature of wage increases in some sectors in 2024. The wage tracker excluding one-off payments indicates growth of 4.2% in 2024 and 3.8% in 2025. See Chart 1 and Table 1 for further details.

The ECB wage tracker may be subject to revisions, and the forward-looking part should not be interpreted as a forecast, as it only captures the information that is available for the active collective bargaining agreements. It should also be noted that the ECB wage tracker does not track the indicator of negotiated wage growth precisely and therefore deviations are to be expected over time.

For a more comprehensive assessment of wage developments in the euro area, please refer to the June 2025 Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections for the euro area, which indicate a yearly growth rate of compensation per employee in the euro area of 3.2% in 2025, with a quarterly profile of 3.5% in the first quarter, 3.4% in the second quarter, 3.1% in Q3 in the third quarter, and of 2.8% in the fourth quarter.

The ECB publishes four wage tracker indicators for the aggregate of seven participating euro area countries on the ECB Data Portal.

• The headline ECB wage tracker shows negotiated wage growth that includes collectively agreed one-off payments, such as those related to inflation compensation, bonuses or back-dated pay, which are smoothed over 12 months.
• The ECB wage tracker excluding one-off payments reflects the extent of structural (or permanent) negotiated wage increases.
• The ECB wage tracker with unsmoothed one-off payments is constructed using a methodology that, both in terms of data sources and statistical methodology, is conceptually similar to, but not necessarily the same as, that used for the ECB indicator of negotiated wage growth.
• The share of employees covered is the percentage of employees across the participating countries that are directly covered by ECB wage tracker data. This indicator provides information on the representativeness of the underlying (negotiated) wage growth signals obtained from the set of wage tracker indicators for the aggregate of the participating countries. Employee coverage differs across countries and within each country over time (further details are provided in Table 2).

For media queries, please contact Benoit Deeg, tel.: +491721683704

Notes:

• The ECB wage tracker is the result of a Eurosystem partnership currently comprising the European Central Bank and seven euro area national central banks: the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Bank of Greece, the Banco de España, the Banque de France, the Banca d’Italia, De Nederlandsche Bank, and the Oesterreichische Nationalbank. It is based on a highly granular database of active collective bargaining agreements for Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria. The wage tracker is one of many sources that can help assess wage pressures in the euro area.
• The wage tracker methodology uses a double aggregation approach. First, it aggregates the highly granular information on collective bargaining agreements and constructs the wage tracker indicators at the country-level using information on the employee coverage for each country. Second, it uses this information to construct the aggregate for the euro area using time-varying weights based on the total compensation of employees among the participating countries.
• Given that the forward-looking nature of the tracker is dependent on the underlying collective bargaining agreements database, the wage signals should always be considered conditional on the information available at any given point in time and thus subject to revisions.
• The results in this press release do not represent the views of the ECB’s decision-making bodies.